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Monday, July 28, 2014

The
Deliberate Sinner is the story of Rihana, an adventurous and free spirited girl
who marries Veer, an eligible bachelor from a wealthy family. Almost
immediately after accepting Veer’s proposal, Rihana starts fearing that Veer
and she are very different individuals whose needs and priorities in life
are strikingly dissimilar.

Bowing to
the family and societal pressures, she goes ahead and marries Veer. However,
she soon finds the going tough with Veer after marriage and realizes that he is
insensitive to her physical and emotional needs. Unable to find any happiness
in her marriage, Rihana now decides to walk out of her marriage and divorce Veer.
How she manages to find freedom fighting the pressure from her family
and society and ends up being The Deliberate Sinner forms the rest of the
story.

The book is
an easy read like most of the books by the new generation Indian writers. Although,
the modern Indian woman is changing with times, she still has to mold her life
according to what her family or her husband decides. The author Bhaavna Arora
connects to the modern Indian woman by placing her protagonist Rihana in
exactly the same situation – where she wants to live a life of her choice but
is burdened by the worries of her mother and demands of her husband.

The author
is successful in terms of expressing the conflict that Rihana goes through
trying to be the good traditional married wife and still fulfilling her physical and
emotional needs. Thankfully, Rihana chooses what is important for her rather
than sticking with her husband and doing what her family and society wanted her
to do.

As a reader,
I found it surprising that a rich, adventurous and a free spirited girl like
Rihana turned very accommodating and adjusting by nature once she got
married. When I pondered over it, I felt
that the same thing happens in the outside world in our country where a girl
who lives the life of princess before marriage is often forced to conform to
the norms of the society and the requirements of her husband and family. The
author does a good job conveying this message through her story.

I was not
too sure if the book should have been titled ‘The Deliberate Sinner’. In order to find her freedom keeping her family and mother happy, Rihana ends up planning an escape route and call herself the ‘Deliberate
Sinner’. What Rihana did was the best
thing to get out of the mess she is in and this act can’t be a sin. At least,
she shouldn't be calling it a sin. There would have been some guilt when Rihana
did what she did to be a free bird, but calling herself a Sinner even a
deliberate the book ends on a negative
note.

The fact
that book is titled with the same name puts the protagonist in a more negative
shade than what she deserves. May be this is why the author has a message on
the first page which says ‘Hate the Sin
Not the Sinner’. Unfortunately, this is the feeling of guilt that an Indian
woman has to go through in such a situation and maybe that’s the reason for the
title.